Observation+of+Teaching+and+Learning


 * Field Report 2- Observation of Teaching and Learning**

While reading about teaching strategies and taking notes on lectures are both beneficial practices in becoming a better teacher, nothing compares to the value of observing a seasoned teacher model exceptional instruction and their students demonstrating attentive learning. Modeling is the strongest form of instruction a teacher can give as the directions are explicit and the desired product is a mirror image to whatever the teacher produces in guided practice. Even for interns such as myself, I have learned best from my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Cox, when she models strategies, as opposed to giving oral and written instructions on how to conduct a particular activity. Having a front row seat in her planning, teaching, and reflecting this week in her mathematics lesson on Multiplication labs has certainly been a rewarding experience. I have been introduced to new strategies, teaching tools, and classroom management skills. Similarly, the students responded amazingly to the lesson providing my teacher and I with real feedback of the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson through their work. Through Mrs. Cox’s model of lesson planning, teaching, and reflecting as well as the student’s displays of learning, I gained an invaluable understanding of the components of an outstanding mathematics lesson.

Planning is a crucial step in teaching and preparing students for learning. Mrs. Cox spent all day planning and preparing for the multiplication labs she would be conducting that afternoon. This was interesting to see as I instructed multiplication labs two days prior to hers. Thus, to learn about the different labs she was setting up and their various purposes as well as the overall structure and the strategy she used in grouping students was very beneficial for my future plans in labs and centers. One of the first steps she took in planning that I noticed was creating a way to group students for appropriate labs by their already existing multiplicative knowledge. She assigned about half the students, those that have been classified as gifted as well as those that had been doing well with multiplication concepts thus far, a pre-assessment from which she would group them accordingly. We had discussed this method before and she refers to it as a pass card. Its purpose is to move the advanced students from doing the work of their classmates who are on task to more appropriate and challenging work. She had a set of three to four lessons for each of the three ability groups (remedial, proficient, and advanced). Only one activity was required for all students’ participation which was entitled “circles and stars” and it required students knowledge of problem solving with multiplication and multiplication as repeated addition. Meanwhile, the other activities that fostered problem solving, multiplication as repeated addition, factors, arrays, the communicative property, the foundation of times tables and skip counting, were different labs for each ability group//.// Therefore, her goals for the lesson were to secure students understanding of multiplication concepts and to enrich the children who already possess this knowledge. Her overall purpose for the day was to expand and reinforce multiplication concepts which she did through math labs in ability groups. To create these labs, she retreated to her inventory of games, worksheets, and previously conducted labs by herself and team teacher. The labs derived from several sources including Marilyn burns articles, “The Gifted and Talented teacher”, Mr. Bob Cretch- the math teacher consultant, “Turk investigations, and Scott Forman series. Her planning was thoughtful and complete so as to encompass all of the learners in her class while meeting their various needs.

The particular group that I was assigned to instruct by Mrs. Cox was the remedial math students. Their lab was centered on the concept of multiples of a number. The activity itself had students color in the multiples of numbers two through twelve on a hundreds table and then record the shaded numbers at the bottom of the page. This lab included thinking of multiples as they relate to skip counting, and to get students to begin thinking about times tables. I explicitly instructed students not to color by the pattern but by the result when you skip count and/ or for smaller numbers, what the product was when multiplying the given number in sequential order. Despite the activity being independent, students discussed the patterns the multiples were forming, and would explain to one another how the numbers they were coloring in were multiples of the number stated at the top of the page//.// Many of the responses I overheard were that the number they shaded was a multiple of the number given because it was that many spaces away from the previous number that was colored in. I also asked several students with smaller numbers (one through ten) how they related to the factor of the given number on each page. Students replied that the number they were given times the counting numbers would produce a factor. For a lot of the students, this idea was still slightly too difficult to grasp so many stuck to skip counting. Therefore the mathematical knowledge student’s demonstrated was skip counting and for some, basic times tables for factors times’ one through ten. The thought process was much less tedious when they completed the task via skip counting although it was still important to make student aware that factors meant the number given time the next in the number line gave them the product and the same number they shaded when using the method of skip counting. The student struggled with this lab in terms of understanding its connection to multiplication, but overall, I was able to see students thought processes and learning in their work and connecting multiplication to other strategies/methods.

Reflecting on a lesson is probably the most significant part of the instructing process. It is crucial that as teacher we evaluate our successes and weaknesses in our instructional design and management. Through these assessments of our own work, we can better develop the labs for the following year to assure more explicit teaching and learning. What Mrs. Cox plans to do in the future with the students was to continue the other labs with the students as they only were able to complete one in the time that I observed, and later have them rotate to the other stations she had assigned them to. She also planned to assess them on their concepts of multiplication to gauge whether she had to review any concepts before moving on to teaching times tables. Overall, she believed the labs went well as the children were engaged and worked independently. She found the activities to be so beneficial in her students understanding and mastery of multiplication concepts that she plans to use them again next year. As for the components that Mrs. Cox felt needed improvement consisted of administering the pre-assessment the day before to have groupings ahead of time. The grading of the pre-assessments took up a great deal of time, about 15 to 20 minutes, and while we were grading I noticed that it was taking away from students conducting their labs. With this I questioned Mrs. Cox if this was taking longer than expected and if so, how it would affect her plans. She replied at that time that the assessment was necessary and she would alter her plans by only having her student’s complete one station that day. After the lesson however, she saw a greater advantage in testing students a whole day before. Another element she feels the need to change is the removal of a page from the circle and stars activity because it was too long. Finally she hopes in the future to use more technology in the classroom through her smartboard for labs on prime factorization. While there were components Mrs. Cox didn’t feel went as well, students were still successful and it was measured in their connections between the activity and the multiplication concept they were learning/reviewing. Students were also constantly engaged and thinking critically about multiplication concepts and their applications to their assigned activity. Because of Mrs. Cox’s reflection on her labs, I now know how to productively reflect on mine as well as some strategies and ideas to keep in mind when planning future centers.

The study of teaching and learning are detrimental to a novice teacher’s success in their future classrooms. The most beneficial way to receive such training is by observing cooperating teachers model effective strategies of instruction as well as students active engagement in learning material. I was fortunate to study Mrs. Cox, my cooperating teacher plan, facilitate and reflect upon the multiplication labs with her students who also displayed for me valuable models of learning. The experience was truly rewarding in understanding and learning about different resources to plan instruction, legitimate goals for students in a lesson, how students relate previous knowledge to a task, seriously identifying strengths and weaknesses of a lesson, and creating a course of action to fortify weak points. The observation of Mrs. Cox’s instruction of the multiplication labs and the students engaged learning of them was a meaningful experience to better develop my mathematics teaching skills.